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Dragonflight: Second first impression of Pern
As previously discussed, my first foray into Anne McCaffrey's Pern series was a couple of out-of-order volumes that I found alternately intriguing, boring, and creepy. About twenty years later, I made a second entry the way it should have been all along, with Dragonflight, the 1968 novel that started the series.
My impressions were as follow:
First, the book did work a hell of a lot better as a series entry, not least because it did actual setup for readers who were coming in for the first time. It certainly got me more hooked on the world than the science in Dragonsdawn or the sheer confusion that was Dragonquest While Pern came across as a Crapsack World that I would never, ever want to visit, at least the morally questionable actions of the characters made sense in the context of a world of little excess production and ruthless hierarchy.
Second, the characters and drama were gripping, at least at first. I found the main characters and their struggles engaging and relatable, from Lessa's determination to get her inheritance back to F'lar's frustration at Pern's fall from tradition. I enjoyed the alien mores of this world, like the subtle details of a dragonrider and Hold lord's interactions, though McCaffrey's choppy writing did not always aid in its comprehension. Plus, the characters were all flawed and amoral enough to be believable inhabitants of this rough, bleak world.
Third, however, the fun I was having with the world and the characters steadily eroded as the narrative wore on. At first I thought F'lar and Lessa's obvious faults made them more interesting as characters, but it became clearer as the story went on that the narrative was not actually acknowledging those flaws, particularly with F'lar whom the story bent over backward to prove right and to give everything he wanted.
This partisanship in the narrative became outright creepy when it came to F'lar and Lessa's relationship, with F'lar emotionally, physically, and sexually abusing Lessa, and her in turn developing a strong traumatic bond to please her abuser. The horrible part wasn't that the book portrayed a textbook abusive relationship--it's actually in keeping with the treatment of women as chattel that's common in this world--but that it described and then promptly disregarded the abuse in favor of presenting the relationship as True Love. I can't add much on this front to Silver Adept's masterful deconstruction, so I'll refer you to those posts instead.
Fourth, Anne McCaffrey just isn't a good writer. I have nothing against plain, worksmanlike style, but in Dragonflight at least the writing has all sorts of ticks and awkward turns of phrase that at times distract from the story. The constant use of "quickly" in particular was maddening. Its presence in a sentence like "She rushed quickly through the big cavern" is laughably unnecessary, and combinations like "faded quickly" or "turned quickly" should have been replaced with strong verbs like "vanished" or "swiveled." PoV often shifted within the same scene, leaving me disoriented and hindering immersion.
In short, as Julie Andrews sang, the very beginning is a very good place to start. Dragonflight was a better start for the series than my original introduction, and it certainly had a lot of fun elements. The experience was marred for me, however, by the narrative playing favorites and getting into outright rape/abuse apologia. (Yes, it was published half a century ago. No, that does not make it harmless.)
Next up is Dragonquest, which I read once before and have almost entirely forgotten. I don't have the patience to re-buy and re-read it, so I think I'll follow along with Silver Adept's deconstruction instead.
My impressions were as follow:
First, the book did work a hell of a lot better as a series entry, not least because it did actual setup for readers who were coming in for the first time. It certainly got me more hooked on the world than the science in Dragonsdawn or the sheer confusion that was Dragonquest While Pern came across as a Crapsack World that I would never, ever want to visit, at least the morally questionable actions of the characters made sense in the context of a world of little excess production and ruthless hierarchy.
Second, the characters and drama were gripping, at least at first. I found the main characters and their struggles engaging and relatable, from Lessa's determination to get her inheritance back to F'lar's frustration at Pern's fall from tradition. I enjoyed the alien mores of this world, like the subtle details of a dragonrider and Hold lord's interactions, though McCaffrey's choppy writing did not always aid in its comprehension. Plus, the characters were all flawed and amoral enough to be believable inhabitants of this rough, bleak world.
Third, however, the fun I was having with the world and the characters steadily eroded as the narrative wore on. At first I thought F'lar and Lessa's obvious faults made them more interesting as characters, but it became clearer as the story went on that the narrative was not actually acknowledging those flaws, particularly with F'lar whom the story bent over backward to prove right and to give everything he wanted.
This partisanship in the narrative became outright creepy when it came to F'lar and Lessa's relationship, with F'lar emotionally, physically, and sexually abusing Lessa, and her in turn developing a strong traumatic bond to please her abuser. The horrible part wasn't that the book portrayed a textbook abusive relationship--it's actually in keeping with the treatment of women as chattel that's common in this world--but that it described and then promptly disregarded the abuse in favor of presenting the relationship as True Love. I can't add much on this front to Silver Adept's masterful deconstruction, so I'll refer you to those posts instead.
Fourth, Anne McCaffrey just isn't a good writer. I have nothing against plain, worksmanlike style, but in Dragonflight at least the writing has all sorts of ticks and awkward turns of phrase that at times distract from the story. The constant use of "quickly" in particular was maddening. Its presence in a sentence like "She rushed quickly through the big cavern" is laughably unnecessary, and combinations like "faded quickly" or "turned quickly" should have been replaced with strong verbs like "vanished" or "swiveled." PoV often shifted within the same scene, leaving me disoriented and hindering immersion.
In short, as Julie Andrews sang, the very beginning is a very good place to start. Dragonflight was a better start for the series than my original introduction, and it certainly had a lot of fun elements. The experience was marred for me, however, by the narrative playing favorites and getting into outright rape/abuse apologia. (Yes, it was published half a century ago. No, that does not make it harmless.)
Next up is Dragonquest, which I read once before and have almost entirely forgotten. I don't have the patience to re-buy and re-read it, so I think I'll follow along with Silver Adept's deconstruction instead.